Free Spirits
by foojules
Summary: After the house party, Tom Branson has an epiphany. Follows canon through S4x03, but has a more hopeful ending than we're likely to get on the show. Spoilers for S4.


_AN: I'm not sure how much people will like this—to be honest, I kind of hate it myself—but I needed to get it out. Warning: dubcon/implied sexual assault. Not graphic._

* * *

"You understand me, don't you?"

Saying that is the last clear impression he has of the evening. The next thing he knows he's in bed—he doesn't remember how he got there—and he's not alone.

He's completely disoriented. "Sybil?" Even before he says it he knows he's wrong, it's not her, of course it's not.

"Quiet," murmurs the voice in the dark that is not his wife's. "They'll hear us." A familiar voice.

"Brai… Edna?"

"_Shhhh!_" Two fingers press against his lips. A cheek alongside his, breath wafting against his ear. "I can be her for you," comes the whisper, light as snowfall. "Let me be her."

She's pressed against him. His heart begins to pound. "Wait." He can't keep his eyes open. Can't breathe, can hardly speak. "No." But oblivion sweeps over him, black and sodden, and there is no more conscious thought until morning.

-ooo-

Waking is excruciating. His head pounds and his mouth's a poison desert and there are many pieces missing from the previous evening. He's had his share of drunk nights, but there's only one other morning in his life when he remembers feeling quite like this.

Sitting up makes him nauseous so he stays in bed, the covers rumpled around his waist, and tries to think. Surely he didn't have _that _much to drink. He was knocking them back in the drawing room, sure, and then there was the wine at dinner and the brandy he'd snitched in the library and Edna's gargantuan glass of whiskey and…

_Edna_.

A whisper in the dark, a giggle. A light hand.

_Oh, God._

The sheets are near torn off the bed.

_What have I done?_

-ooo-

During his fumbling apology she keeps her face averted, her expression opaque, but several times during the next few days he catches her looking at him. All of a sudden she seems to be everywhere he is. As he leaves his room one morning she happens to be bustling down the corridor and almost runs into him, her dark skirt billowing within an inch of his calf as she stops short. He enters the front hall in the evening, and she emerges from the baize door before he can reach the stairs. At each encounter her gaze flicks up at his face, then drops as if in confusion. But her eyes are anything but shy.

He takes to locking his door before he goes to bed, and a good thing, too: he's roused in the middle of one night by a furtive click, the unmistakable sound of someone trying to turn the handle. Thwarted, the someone rustles away, leaving Tom wide awake with his thoughts. For the first time it occurs to him to wonder whether the responsibility for what happened (and what _did _happen?) lies entirely with him. If Edna is brazen enough to try his door when he's sober, he can only imagine what she'd dare to do when he's not.

The next evening at dinner he could swear Thomas—_Barrow_—smirks at him in the dining room. Tom's never liked him: not when they were both below stairs, and not now, no matter how much of a soft spot Sybil had for him. He's a slick little weasel and no mistake. Tom wonders whether he knows something. It keeps him from attending fully to the conversation, even though it concerns people he actually knows and cares about. Apparently Anna has been poorly since the house party.

"Bates has been in a brown study as well," Robert remarks.

"I do hope there's no trouble in paradise," the Dowager simpers. "Mary, you'll remember the advice I gave you. A maid with a husband is a maid whose loyalties are divided."

"I assure you, I have no doubt of Anna's loyalty," Mary says evenly, and the talk moves on, but when the women go through Barrow catches Tom's eye once more.

He begins to feel almost hunted.

-ooo-

Usually when he dreams of Sybil, he's unaware that he's asleep. That makes it all the more bitter when he wakes to find nothing's changed.

This time it's different. He knows from the beginning that it's not real, yet she is so vividly present that he can almost count the hairs in her eyebrows. And instead of Dublin or the garage or any of the other places they lived out their short life together, they're in the hall downstairs. She sits on the bench at the foot of the grand staircase and he tells her how sorry he is.

"I've failed you." She gives him her indulgent smile and shakes her head, but he can't accept that. "I've dishonored your memory, Sybil, I…" He shifts from the bench at her side to his knees before her, supplicating. Her eyes are so kind that he can't bear to look at them.

Her hands have become smoke but he tries to catch at them, bows his head so his forehead is on her knuckles. _My poor, strong, brave darling_, she says in the soundless way of dreams, her voice going into his mind rather than his ears. _It feels like you're all alone, but you're not._

He keeps his head down. He can't look at her to whisper the sacrilege: "I want to be with you. I want to be where you are." He's not thinking of Sybbie, or of heaven or hell or oblivion or whatever might come; he only wants not to feel like this anymore, ever again. _I have great pride in the love of that young woman, and I will strive to be worthy of it_. What a fool he was. The longer he lives, the less worthy he is.

He raises his head and they're somewhere else, seated on the grass under a wide white sky. She's in a light print dress, hatless, her hair long like it was that summer all those years ago. The summer they lit the match and the world was burning so bright and hot that no one noticed. They're no longer at Downton; nor in England. They aren't any place they've ever been together. The taste of the air brings him back to his boyhood.

His heart cracks in half when she smiles at him and lies back on the grass, her arm behind her head. _Do you remember the time you said I was a free spirit?_

The scene plays in his memory, reflected in her eyes that reflect the clouds. "I do."

_You're one too._ She turns her face to him again, the world shrunk down to her grey-blue gaze. _Free spirits need to be free, Tom._

"What does that—"

_Go forward_. She's no longer smiling. Not even a little.

_Go forward_. It reverberates in his mind until it wakes him up. The weight that has descended on him every morning for the last week when he opens his eyes is still there, but it seems just a little bit lighter.

More than that, though, he feels he's awakened—really, _truly _awakened—for the first time in almost two years. And he shakes his head in disbelief at the choices he's made.

Not that they wouldn't make sense to some. Even after the initial shock and paralysis lifted, there were plenty of reasons for him to stick close to the Crawleys: good, solid, material advantages, for himself and his daughter both. A home, work, family, a name: those aren't nothing.

But he knows the real reason he's stayed. As long as he's at Downton he can imagine her moving through the rooms, walking over the fields. Her laugh might just have died away as he enters the breakfast room. The small sound heard through the library door might be her skirt rustling. If he lingers in the garage—which he never does, but if he did—she might show up to fiddle with odds and ends on the workbench, pretending she came out to order the motor.

Any new place will be a place without Sybil. And that's what scares him.

He doesn't believe in ghosts. Hell, he doesn't even know if he believes in an afterlife. But whether the vision in his head last night was actually _her_—her soul or spirit or any of the names that could be put to it—or just the clamoring of his impatient unconscious mind, he knows that she was right.

After work, after dinner, he goes up to the nursery. Sybbie and George are already asleep. The apparently unsuitable Nanny West—she seemed a bit bluff to Tom, but competent enough—has not yet been permanently replaced, and her assistant doesn't say boo to him when he draws up a chair next to Sybbie's cot. He sits there for a long while, watching her little chest rise and fall, her eyelids twitch. Maybe Sybil visits her at night, too. The thought is comforting.

Sybbie's the one who'll lose the most by them leaving Downton, he knows. He's not naive enough to think that a chauffeur's daughter will be afforded a position anything like her mother's, but having the Earl and Countess of Grantham as grandparents counts for more here than anywhere else. And she'll have a proper young lady's upbringing.

He thinks of what Sybil would say to that, how she'd feel about her daughter growing up the same way she did, and he wonders how he ever thought staying here was a good idea.

He decides that he must act before he loses his nerve.

-ooo-

Mr Joseph O'Rourke

6840 South Peoria Street

Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

My Dear Cousin:

I hope this finds you in good health and spirits; it has been a long time since we were last together. I send good wishes from my mother and yours, who are both well.

My mother tells me that you are quite happily settled in America, and the fact is I wish to emigrate. Having lost my wife, there is little to keep me in England, I cannot return to Ireland, and so I have hit upon the idea of making a new start and wonder if you might do me the great favour of being my sponsor. I have no wish to be a burden upon you and your family; I am willing and able to work at any job I can find. I was a newspaper reporter in Ireland and I have some little experience with farming and more with driving & motor repair, but any sort of labour will do well enough. If you hear of anything that might serve I should be grateful if you would let me know.

I will be travelling with my daughter aged 2 yrs. and should be much obliged if you could look out a suitable lodging for us and some accommodation for her daily care.

I trust you remember the happy times we shared as lads, and have taken care that certain of them remain between us; no-one needs to know how exactly the axle on Mr Dryden's wagon came to be broken, do they? I will await your answer and pray for the current and continued health & happiness of you and your family.

Until then I remain

Your Cousin

Tom Branson

-ooo-

Mr Tom Branson

Downton Abbey

Yorkshire, England

Dear Tom

I remember those times fondly & to this day no-one is the wiser about Mr Dryden's wagon. I had heard you married as well as the sad news of your wifes passing, God rest her soul.

Of course you must come, & bring your little girl. There are plenty of opportunities to be had here for a man of enterprise whether in letters or manual work. The city can be a hard place for someone with no family but of course you will stop at my house. My wife Abbie (Abigail Harborough before we married, you'll remember her elder brother John) lets the extra rooms & one has just come available. If you can make the trip at once we will keep it that way until you arrive. It is not large but clean & includes board & Abbie can look after your daughter along with our own little ones. They are very keen to meet their cousin.

Give my best to your mother & to mine & all the rest. Let me know of your plans.

Your Cousin

Joe

-ooo-

_So it's settled,_ he thinks. The next thing to do is give notice. _May as well get it over with._

He does so at breakfast the morning after receiving Joe's letter. No one does anything so ill-bred as gasping or dropping cutlery, but there is a long silence.

"You can't be serious," says Robert, finally. He dabs at his mouth with his napkin and does not meet Tom's eyes.

"Quite serious." Tom sips his coffee.

"But what will you do?" Cora's eyes bulge, as they do whenever she hears something upsetting.

"I've a cousin in Chicago who's willing to sponsor me. I'll get a job and we'll live with him and his wife for a while."

Cora's eyes bug out even further at the word _we_. "You're going to take Sybbie?"

"Of course. I couldn't be parted from her." Tom butters a slice of bread, though he's not got much of an appetite. "You'll be welcome to come and visit."

"You have been talking about going to see Grandmama," Mary tells her mother. "Surely Chicago isn't _too _much further to travel than New York."

Tom gives her a grateful smile. "I'd like Sybbie to know her grandparents, and her aunts." He looks at Robert and Cora and their daughters in turn. "And her cousin." His eyes touch on Rose, who looks like she'd rather be anywhere else. "But I think we all know I don't belong here."

Robert harrumphs. "When have we ever caused you to feel that you were anything other than one of us?"

Tom lets that pass. "As long as I stay here, I'll never be able to get on with life. Certainly you can understand that." Understand or not, they'll have to deal with it.

Cora's brow furrows, and it occurs to Tom that Edna will probably have the news from her before luncheon. "Well, I don't think it's what Sybil would want. Her child growing up an ocean away from family."

Tom presses his lips together on the sharp words that want to come out. Instead he says, "She will have family." _Just not yours._

-ooo-

Sure enough, she corners him in the first-floor corridor before the day is out. "You're leaving." Her eyes accuse. He feels a momentary, reflexive pang of remorse and drops his gaze.

"I am." He makes himself lift his chin and look her steadily in the eyes.

Something flickers and catches fire there and he realizes with a shock that it's fury. _She's _furious with _him_. "What about me?" She hisses, stepping closer. "What about us?"

A hot bubble of rage rises suddenly in his gut, the like of which he hasn't felt since he heard about Donal being shot like a dog while walking down King Street minding his own. He grits his teeth. "There is no us." It's all he can do not to shout it.

He's on the point of turning and stalking away from her when she says in a low voice, "What if there's a baby?"

That stops him in his tracks. Somehow, he's not thought this far, which was stupid. "So we _did…_" His voice comes out hoarse and his hand makes an ellipse in the air, sketching out the euphemism he can't even bring himself to say aloud. Now it's her turn to drop her head. It's not quite a nod; nor is it a negation. "I can't remember it," he murmurs, more to himself than her.

"No, you wouldn't, would you?"

There's something about her voice, the look in her eye. She looks the way Barrow always did in the old days when he'd managed to put something over on someone. Tom thinks about the morning after that night, how he compared it to the only other morning he'd felt like that without even realizing. Even after Larry Grey, the thought that she'd created the situation instead of just taking advantage of it never occurred to him. But now it has. His anger, only half tamped down, boils back to the surface.

"You wanted me to be drunk." He steps into her space and she retreats, but he pursues her. "You did something, didn't you? What did you put in that whiskey?"

The fury drains out of her, replaced by naked fear. That more than anything convinces him that he's right. "Nothing! I didn't do anything." She turns to flee but his hand snakes out to grab her wrist.

"No, you did." He gives a bitter chuckle as crocodile tears fill her eyes. "Do you know, for an Englishwoman, you're not very good at hiding your feelings."

"I only wanted—" she presses her lips together, shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. You don't care."

She won't make him feel sorry for her. He drops her wrist, grimaces and turns away.

She stops him before he gets five steps down the corridor. "If there is a baby…"

His lip curls as he whips around. "I'll not marry you." She flinches like he's hit her.

He lets his eyes fall shut for a moment, thinking. It's not a child's fault, the manner in which it comes into being. If there is one, he'll do his duty. "_If…_" he opens his eyes and she's standing there with her features arranged into their usual composed mask. For some reason that's even more maddening than that self-satisfied look from before. "Go and see Mrs Crawley. Have her write to me, she'll know where. And she'll help you."

Her eyes narrow. "So that's it then."

"What do you want me to say?" His frustrated hands fly up from his sides. "You made a fool of me."

"One wrong doesn't remedy another." It's barely above a whisper; her eyes are fixed on the carpet at his feet.

"I know. Don't you think I know?" He bites the insides of his cheeks, tasting blood. "But I can't give you any more than that." He hurries down the hall before she can speak again.

-ooo-

The weeks pass quickly. Edna stays out of his way, thank God. He finds a replacement agent, a Benjamin Holder, and shows him the ropes. The date settled upon approaches and there's a flurry of packing, tickets for the passage purchased—third class, he insists—and last-minute visits to the plantations, tying up loose ends. His final dinner at Downton Abbey is deceptively pleasant; it seems he finally feels comfortable with these people, just as he's about to leave them.

Surprisingly, Mary goes with them to the station. "You'll be all right with her?" She holds a squirming Sybbie awkwardly while Tom sees to the luggage. "It'll be quite different without a nanny, you know."

"We'll manage. Won't we, love?" Sybbie lets out a screech, excited at the prospect of a grand adventure.

Mary laughs and drops a kiss on her curls before handing her to Tom. "Good luck."

"And you. Don't let Holder keep you out of things."

She smiles slightly. "I wouldn't dream of it."

They make the crossing without too much fuss. Tom is violently seasick for the first three days of the voyage, but Sybbie is utterly unfazed. Thankfully, the couple in the cabin next door have three children and are more than willing to look after her rather than have her careening about the lower decks on her own. They arrive in New York and being dropped into the anthill of Ellis Island almost makes Tom wish he'd traveled first class. But they finally make it through and negotiate the train schedules to Chicago, where the welcome from his cousin is as warm as he has been led to expect.

He begins counting the days from the beginning again. An associate of Joe's boss is running for city council and looking for a junior speechwriter, and Tom gets the job. It's little more than fetching coffee and sharpening pencils but it's a foot in the door. It quickly gets around the neighborhood that he's mechanically inclined and during evenings and weekends he has more odd jobs than he knows what to do with, so he does all right. Even with the frenetic pace he still sees more of Sybbie than he ever did during the long slow days at Downton.

When he's been in Chicago just over a year the alderman's senior speechwriter jumps ship to work in radio drama and so Tom gets a promotion. He works twelve-hour days and comes back to Joe and Abbie's to kiss Sybbie, who sleeps deeply in the big bed with her cousins, and they spend Sundays together and he's too busy to worry much about anything other than the immediate concerns of life. There are letters from England, even a few from Mrs Crawley, but none of them mention Cora's maid. Cora and Mary visit, bringing Anna and only Anna; Tom does not ask questions. There are no shocking revelations. No news is good news, he figures.

The months pass quickly. They've been in Chicago two years when Tom moves into a little house a few blocks from the O'Rourkes, close enough to walk Sybbie over in the mornings, close enough to walk to school when she starts the next year. The alderman makes a run for state representative, and for months Tom lives and breathes the campaign. This, he thinks, would be a very bad time for any past indiscretions to come to light. But nothing does.

His guy loses the race and he finds another job, reporting on politics for the _Daily News_. It's different, being on this side of it, and he thinks it's much better: politics is a dirty business, especially here, and he was starting to feel tainted.

Cora makes another trip over, by herself this time, as Mary is remarried and expecting. In the hotel tearoom she dandles a fidgety Sybbie; the girl's getting too big for such treatment, but she suffers it out of a temporary awe for this fancy lady who is her grandmother. Tom keeps a nervous eye on the china within his daughter's reach and asks after the family and what staff still remain from his time. The news is mostly good. Mr and Mrs Bates's son is growing like a weed, a nice mild-mannered boy. Apparently Georgie is rather a bad influence on him, but that'll end once the little heir goes away to school. Mr and Mrs Molesley have returned to the village after an absence of some years to care for Mr Molesley senior in his old age—

"Mrs Molesley?" Tom interjects. "I didn't know Mr Molesley had married."

"Oh, yes. You might remember her, actually. She was my maid after O'Brien left. Braithwaite?"

Tom gives a nod: yes, he remembers her.

"Of course, she'd left Downton well before she and Molesley…" Cora flicks her hand out as though getting rid of something distasteful; Tom wonders what more there is to the story, but doesn't want to ask. "I don't think they're very happy. I hear their fights are quite the scandal in the village." She purses her lips disapprovingly.

"What a shame," murmurs Tom. _But not for her._

"Indeed. Though I suppose we all must live out the lives we make for ourselves."

Tom smiles. "How very American of you to say that."

* * *

_AN#2: Sorry, Molesley. But we couldn't let Edna get off scot-free, could we? Writing this helped me feel a little bit better about Tom's storyline in the latest episode. Hope it did the same for some of you. _


End file.
